The Attorney General’s Chambers has been ordered to reprocess an FoI request for a contract with an external supplier.
A person requested contracts with Sea Pegasus Drafting Services Limited, contract payments, cost-benefit analysis and contract management emails.
The AGC refused to provide any information, claiming it was information provided in confidence.
However, Information Commissioner Dr Alexandra Delaney-Bhattacharya ruled that “a contract involving a public authority does not qualify as ‘information provided in confidence’ as contracts are typically collaborative documents created by both parties”.
The Commissioner found that AGC “failed to demonstrate a reasonable search for all information, inappropriately applied the section 26 exemption, and failed to consider practical refusal where information was not located”.
In correspondence with the Commissioner, AGC stated that “the contract was entered into during the Covid pandemic in 2020, for services which were intended to be carried out on an emergency basis”.
Dr Delaney-Bhattacharya noted that an invoice had been withheld under the confidentiality exemption, stating that “there should be a high threshold for claiming that an invoice for public works is confidential”.
The AGC has 30 days to either disclose the information or issue a new refusal notice.